10.17951/f.2019.74.183-212 ANNALES UNIVERSITATIS MARIAE CURIE-SKŁODOWSKA LUBLIN – POLONIA VOL. LXXIV SECTIO F 2019 National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine OLEKSANDR D. SUKHOMLYN ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0864-8560 [email protected] Russian Military Presence and Colonisation of Zaporizhian Host (Orel-Samara Region) in the Age of New Sich (1734–1775)* Obecność wojsk rosyjskich i zasiedlenie terytorium Zaporoża (regionu między rzekami Orelą i Samarą) w okresie Nowej Siczy (1734–1775) SUMMARY This article considers general course of the region’s settlement and the process of creating slobodas in the vicinity of Russian strongholds, and the colonisation efforts (state and private) undertaken by the Russian administration on the basis of micro-historical approach. Analysis of documents on the census proves that it was the Zaporizhian elites, and not the Russian strongholds, that had a fundamental impact on the process of settlement of Zaporizhia in the 1740s and 1760s. Attempts to control the slobodas, situated near the strongholds, by the Russian administration and attempts to extend power to Zaporizhian subjects were not successful. Keywords: Zaporizhian Host; Southern Ukraine; sloboda; colonisation; confessional census; Russian strongholds INTRODUCTION The period of New Sich is significant for the history of Southern Ukraine. It is important that an active settlement of areas which belonged to the Zaporizhian * This article was prepared as part of a research project “Unification and Integration of Eu- ropean Frontier: Comparative Research of Imperial Incorporation Policies in Danubian and Pontic Regions (17th–19th centuries)”, financed by the Scholarship Programme of the Visegrad Fund (Viseg- rad Scholarship Program, for post-masters). 184 OLEKSANDR D. Sukhomlyn army took place exactly in the period of New Zaporizhian Sich. Amongst other things, it was due to this colonisation that the majority of still existing civic and village settlements in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, partly Kherson, Kirovohrad, Donetsk Oblasts, and other oblasts of modern Ukraine – areas which belonged to Zaporizhia until 1775 – was formed. Significant breakthrough in the development of the Zaporizhian border com- munity and the entire Southern Ukraine took place in the period of the existence of New Sich. Owing to a number of circumstances in Zaporizhia, a class of owners (proprietors), opposed to the Cossack “proletariat” (siroma), was created. While for the siroma the most important was the imperative of “spoils” (mainly of war nature) and having a traditional Cossack lifestyle, the settled proprietors thought it was important to consolidate their own prosperity at the expense of development of agriculture and commerce in Zaporizhia. Due to the presence of rich natu- ral resources, intensive influx of people migrated from other regions of Ukraine to the lands of Zaporizhia, economic freedom and, as a consequence, patronage of Sich’s administration, the above-mentioned areas started to develop quickly. Significant role in the colonisation of Southern Ukraine was played by the last Koshovyy Otaman, Petro Kalnyshevs’kyy1 . In the period of New Sich, Zaporizhia came under the direct control of the Russian Empire, which was exercised from 1734 to the beginning of the 1750s, at first by a Kiev general-governor and then a hetman (until 1764) and the Second Collegium of Little Russia (1764–1775). At the local level, the direct imperial control over Zaporizhia was conducted by the system of fortifications erected in strategically located – from its perspective – places. The main aspiration of the Russian Empire in the 18th century was to gain access to the Black Sea. This goal was to be achieved by creating and using a mas- sive instrument – a fleet, and to be more precise, the Don and Dnieper flotilla, which had in fact been put into fruition even before the Russo-Turkish War in 1735–1739. For the purpose of supporting the fleet on both banks of the River Dnieper from the estuary of the Orel all the way to the island of Khortytsia, forti- fied stations were erected from 17352, which in the following years of war became a foundation for building barricades and redoubts. After a rather unexpected end of the war in the autumn of 1739, the majority of strongholds was liquidated by taking the garrisons away and removing the supplies. It took a few more years to move the military equipment to the Ukrainian Line and to liquidate useless 1 V.V. Grybovsky, Petro Kalnyshevs’kyy u vymiri polityki ta povsiakdennosti, „Kozats’ka spadshchyna: almanah Instytutu suspil’nych doslidzhen” 2006, t. 3. 2 Building of outposts on the left bank of the Dnieper, connected with the autumn expedition to Crimea by General Leontiev is dated exactly to 1735 (O.V. Malov, V.O. Veklenko, A.V. Veklen- ko, Kartografichni dzherela do istoriyi Bogorodyckoyi fortetsi-Starosamarskogo retranshementu, „Frontyry mista: istoryko-kulturologichnyy almanah” 2012, t. 1, p. 120. RUSSIAN Military Presence and Colonisation of ZAPORIZHIAN HOST... 185 warships3. As of 1741, the garrisons of all the active Russian strongholds in the territories of Zaporizhia held 1,440 people4. The number of garrisons-strong- holds along the Lower Dnieper was diminished over time, and as of the 1750s and 1760s there were around 350 military men in Zaporizhia5 who created garri- sons in 3 strongholds: of New Sich (Novosichens’kyy retrenchment)6, Old Samara (Starosamars’kyy retrenchment)7 and Kamyanka (Kamyans’kyy retrenchment)8, as well as 4 redoubts (Kodatskyy9, Birkutskyy10, Sokil’s’kyy11 and Mykytyns’kyy, the latter is mentioned in the documents as Mykytynska zastava12). Due to the fact that the fortifications were initially erected to support and secure the Dnieper flotilla during the time of military activities (which, in accor- dance with the command’s plans, should have been ended with consolidation of the Russian Empire if not in Istanbul13 then at least along the Black Sea coast), their functioning in the post-war period was not anticipated in a long term. For this reason, the above-mentioned Russian fortifications became – in their nature – the imperial border observation forts oriented to the Crimean-Tatar direction. In real- ity, the function of the Russian strongholds as typical warehouses (in the event of a future Russo-Turkish war) was supplemented also with the function of having universal control of the Zaporizhia Host. The presence of the Russian military in the territory of Zaporizhia was not a sub- stantial military force not only because in the 1750s and 1760s it amounted only to 3 The Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv (hereinafter: CSHAUK), found 59, inventory 1, file 785, fol. 4–5, 84–84v. 4 CSHAUK, found 59, inv. 1, file 781, fol. 35v–36. 5 CSHAUK, found 755, inv. 1, file 3, fol. 61–62, 63–64, 67–68, 69–70, 71–72, 73–74, 76–77, 80–81. 6 The New Sich fortress – a Russian stronghold, was built by Russian Army near the New Sich (Central military camp of Zaporizhian Cossacks) in 1736. At present, it is sunk by a water reservoir. 7 Fortifications were preserved on the outskirts of the village of Shevczenko which falls within the border of the modern city of Dnieper. 8 They were located in the vicinity of the village of Locmans’ka Kamyanka which falls within the modern city of Dnieper. At present, they are sunk by the waters of the Dnieper Reservoir. 9 It was situated on the left bank of the Dnieper River in the city of Dnieper, near Kubans’ka Street. 10 It was situated not far from the village of Revunivka on the left bank of the Dnieper River in the vicinity of the modern city of Kamyns’ke. At present, the village is sunk by the waters of the Middle Dnieper water reservoir. 11 It was situated in the vicinity of the modern village of Mykolayvka, in Petrykivka District (rayon) of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast; at present, there are plots with buildings in the town. 12 It was situated 5 km from the modern city of Nikopol’, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. 13 O.O. Ryabinin-Sklyarevskyy, Zaporoz’ki zakoloty ta keruyucha verstva Kosha XVIII st., [in:] A.A. Ryabinin-Sklyarevskyy. Materialy k biografii, red. G.L. Malinova, I.V. Sapozhnikov, Odessa 2000, p. 106. 186 OLEKSANDR D. Sukhomlyn 350 people14, which constituted a small group in comparison to the Zaporizhia Host. At the beginning of the 1750s, the number of the Zaporizhia Host was equal to 27,000, without including peasant population (we take into consideration only men who were capable of fighting)15. The Russian strongholds, built in the Zaporizhian region in the times of war in 1735–1739, lost their necessary defensive status very quickly: cannons were laying on the ground without carriages16, it was possible to cross over on the horseback the land ramparts of the New Sich fortress (embankment and ditch), turn- pikes (wooden ramparts) were dismantled for firewood17. The command often made attempts to bring the fortresses to a proper defensive condition18, but due to the lack of resources no major repairs were carried out. Secondary importance of the strongholds in Zaporizhia in relation to those situated in the territories of the Cossack Hetmanate are confirmed by the words of an engineer, de Boscet, that the strongholds of Old Samara and New Sich were being repaired by the forces of garrisons which stationed there “as it used to be”19. The document does not mention any renovations in the redoubts. All of this engendered a situation in which in 1776, the General-Governor of the newly- -established Azov Governorate, Vasiliy Chertkov, notices that the Birkutskyy redoubt had revealed only 4 small-caliber cannons, some artillery shells, and that the earthen fortifications had long ceased to fulfil their role. The embankment and ditch were so damaged that they could not be seen20.